


Shattered Illusion

by Flammenkobold



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anal Sex, Do Not Archive, Dubious consent to due victim's unconditional loyalty to the person, Gangbang, Gentle rapist, Hair-pulling, Implied Voyeurism, Incest, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Mindfuck, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Possessive Behavior, Sibling Incest, Spitroasting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-19 20:24:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17008599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/pseuds/Flammenkobold
Summary: Danny tells him that he broke through the old rotten floor boards of the stage below the Covent Garden Theatre and banged his head pretty hart. Tim doesn't have much choice but to believe him.





	Shattered Illusion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DecoySocktopus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DecoySocktopus/gifts).



Danny tells him that he broke through the old rotten floor boards of underground theatre when he came looking for him. That they had been trapped for hours until someone finally found them.

“Banged your head pretty hard,” Danny says, his voice raspier than usual, probably from calling for help for such a long time. He broke through the floorboards too, but got away with only so much as a scratch. “The doctors were very worried. So was I.”

Tim lifts his hand to rub at his temple, chasing a headache. “Must’ve.” He can’t remember anything beyond Danny leaving that night for some urban exploration. “Probably should avoid stage diving in the future.”

Danny tilts his head. His laughter comes with a delay and settles behinds Tim’s teeth like barbed wire. Pain shoots through his head at the sound of it. Danny’s hands settle on the sides of his face and soothe it right away, like he’s being wrapped in cotton candy.

“It might take you some time to settle in again,” Danny whispers. “But it’ll be alright.” Tim feels woozy and whatever aftershave Danny is wearing doesn’t help. Too much cloves and a hint of mint. “You should rest for a bit now.”

“Yeah, yeah, sounds good.”

Danny leads him to his bed and Tim wonders when they got back to his flat, but his whole body feels just tired and exhausted and heavy as lead, so he just lets Danny guide him under the covers, one of his thumbs rubbing soothing circles into the base of Tim’s skull.

The duvet is a dark red. Tim could swear he only had blue ones.

\---

“How long are you staying?” Tim asks at the breakfast table, because it occurs to him that Danny probably needs to get back to his own things. It’s been a few days since Danny got him home, at least if the calendar on the wall is to be trusted. Danny must’ve gotten it for him; Tim has always relied on his phone and daily planner, neither of which he can find. It doesn’t feel like several days have passed, but then again his head still feels not quite right.

Danny looks at him for a long moment, face and eyes expressionless, before a smile cracks over it. “As long as you need me.”

“Didn’t you have a job in- in-” Tim tries to remember where Danny wanted to go after his visit in London, but the name burns away from his mind like morning fog on a hot day. He shakes his head. “You sure you won’t get bored staying around that long?” He covers up with a joke.

“I could never get bored of you.” 

Danny sounds far too serious about it.

\---

Danny suggests going to a club later that week, get Tim back into his groove and distract him from the aftereffects of his accident. Tim can’t argue with that. 

Time flies by too fast for Tim to be sure where exactly it went, but come Friday night he finds himself standing in a club, loud music pounding in his ears and a glass of vodka cranberry in his hand. It doesn’t taste like vodka cranberry at all, but it’s what Danny’s friend said it was when he pressed it into Tim’s hand. 

Around him people are dancing and drinking and several couples are making out in the darker corners. Tim usually loves this kind of atmosphere, but right now it’s nearly overwhelming. So instead of throwing himself into the chaos and dancing, he stands next to the bar just watching.

A pair of hands circles his waist and Tim nearly spills his drink. 

“Hey,” Danny says into his ear. “Relax, it’s just me.” Tim does relax minimally and Danny takes his free hand into one of his, lacing their fingers over Tim’s stomach. “You want to dance?” he asks, already swaying them gently to the beat of the music. Tim shakes his head. 

“Not right now,” he yells over the music. Something in his stomach knots up at the thought of saying yes. “You?”

“Not without you.”

Tim laughs at that. “Look you don’t have to take pity on your older brother. Go and dance with someone nice.”

“You’re the only one I ever wanted to dance with,” Danny mutters into his ear, barely loud enough for Tim to make out the words, and his head starts swimming and thoughts grow fuzzy at the edges. “But only when you’re ready.”

He thinks of Annie Beckham, dark ponytails and bubblegum pink lipstick, the girl Danny wanted to impress when he was fourteen and took dance classes for. He wants to call Danny a liar or laugh it off, but Danny spins him out and away from himself.

Another pair of hands catch him and the thought slips away.

“Hey there,” he says, blinking up at one of Danny’s friends. The guy smiles at him and sways him around like he weighs nothing, like he could just pick Tim up and carry him away. A thought his libido runs away with, leaving little room for other thoughts. 

“Hey gorgeous, Danny said you might need a bit of distraction.”

His mouth is dry and something’s off, but he can’t pinpoint what. But isn’t this is what he is here for? A distraction. The guy tangles a hand in Tim’s hair and brushes a kiss over Tim’s lips. Tim welcomes it, it’s a good way to push Danny’s words out of his mind and how much the world around him has gone wonky. How he doesn’t know what happened to the glass he’d been holding.

\---

They’re outside of the bar and the guy is down on his knees, his hot mouth and the constant drumming of music through the brick wall scattering away any questions Tim has - like how they got there or if the guy has a condom.

It’s been a while though and this is good. Danny was right, he needed the distraction.

The guy gets him off nearly embarrassingly fast and Tim curses through an orgasm that blindsides him. It’s been some time, but in Tim’s opinion that’s not a good excuse at all. He tries to get an apology out for not warning him in time to pull away, but doesn’t get to it as a tongue is shoved into his mouth. He groans around it, swallows down the remnants of his own come that comes with it. It’s messy and filthy and just what he needed.

When the guy pulls away his eyes look like dark glass marbles as he regards Tim. “Was that good?” he asks and Tim huffs out a laugh.

“Yeah, you could say that. Give me a bit to catch my breath and I’ll return the favour.” But the guy, whose name he still doesn’t know, shakes his head. 

“Danny said to take good care of you. I did.” Like he just fulfilled some kind of order. Danny had always been charming and good at getting people to do things for him, but this seems a bit too far. Tim’s breath still comes in too short intakes, more like he is having a panic attack then the aftermath of a good blowjob and his head starts swimming again. So he focuses on something else, something that comes easier.

“I’m Tim by the way,” he introduces himself, even if it’s unnecessarily. Maybe it yields him a name after all. 

“I know,” the guy says instead of following social cues. He looks Tim over again and then helps him put his clothes back in order. “Let’s get you back to Danny.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tim says slowly and lets himself be led back into the club. 

The heat inside is nearly oppressive and the music a cacophony of noises and it’s pounding through his head like a particularly bad headache. But Danny is on the dancefloor and Tim finds himself transfixed by him. His motions are fluid, stringing music notes together like he’s making the music bend to his will instead of dancing to it. It’s graceful and beautiful and Tim’s heart lurches in his chest with terrible grief and anger he can’t place. It’s forgotten as soon as Danny’s eyes find him. He seems as transfixed by Tim just standing there as Tim is by watching him dance.

Danny holds out his hand, silently asking him to join him on the dancefloor. Tim takes a sluggish step forward. Stops. Panic freezes up his limbs. He can’t. He wants to. He shouldn’t.

In that moment of hesitation a voice breaks through the music, sounding as panicked as he feels. 

“Tim!”

It’s like he’s been put under a spotlight, like something is watching him, dissecting him.

Danny whirls towards the source of it, just so outside of Tim’s view, his face distorted with fury. Like molten wax, Tim thinks hysterically, like it’s worn over an ill-fitting body. Then his world goes black.

\---

He wakes up in his own bed, mouth fuzzy and sticky like its been filled with stale cotton candy. His skin is too warm and too tight and his brain feels like someone gave it a whack with a sledge hammer multiple times. Tim gives a weak groan and puts a hand over his eyes, the bit of light filtering through nearly too much to bear.

The bed next to him dips and a cool, dry hand brushes over his forehead. “Hey,” Danny says softly. “You’re awake.” A waft of the new aftershave he wears envelops Tim and he barely swallows down the urge to vomit because of it.

“By some definition,” Tim groans. He tries to sit up, but everything starts to spin violently. It’s only when Danny puts a hand on the back of his neck and helps him sit up that things settle. 

“What happened?” he asks and gladly accepts the glass of water Danny presses against his lips. 

“You got wasted,” Danny says as Tim dutifully drinks small sips of water. It keeps him from saying that he’s been pretty damn wasted before but it never felt like this, not this extreme.  

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll feel better soon,” he adds as he puts down the glass, the thumb of his other hand rubbing circles against the base of Tim’s skull. It’s a soothing gesture and it helps, even as Tim stares at the glass innocently reflecting a sliver of sunlight. He was sure he only owned clear ones and that one blue glass he got with a McDonald’s meal. 

This one is red.

\---

Danny is right, he does feel better when evening comes around, and it’s just as well that he gets himself talked into joining Danny in the club again. He still doesn’t feel like dancing and he declines the glass one of Danny’s friends offers him. It’s odd how many of them Danny seems to have here in London, but Tim doesn’t dwell on it for too long as the guy who got him off the day before saunters over to him. He guesses it’s the same guy at least, the face already forgotten and the clothes so nondescript he can’t even recall if he wore the same thing the day before.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he greets Tim. “Want to have more fun tonight?” 

“Hey there.” Tim looks around the club, but can’t seem to find Danny. The music is pounding in his ears again, making his headache worse again. “Only if you have somewhere quieter to go.”

“Do you one better, how does a bed sound?” the guy says, his hands coming to rest on Tim’s waist, breaking his concentration. Images of the night before flash through Tim’s mind and he wets his lips. 

“Sounds perfect. Lead the way.”

The guy gives him a sharp smile and reels him in for a kiss that leaves Tim breathless. “Would you be interested in a friend of mine joining as well?” 

That hadn’t been his plan for the evening, but Tim thinks  _ fuck it why not? _

“Sure.”

\---

The sheets are cool against his overheated skin and pleasantly rough against the soft skin of his dick. Hands card through his sweaty hair, one runs soothingly down his spine while another one opens him up. 

Tim can’t remember how he got there, doesn’t remember when the other guy joined them. He doesn’t get much time to contemplate those thoughts as one of them finally sinks his dick into him.

He groans, his fingers digging into the sheets and he tries to push back, but the fingers in his hair tighten and keep him in place.

“Shh, no rush, we have time.” 

Tim tries to say something witty in response to that but his words are muffled by a few fingers being shoved into his mouth. He glares up, but his vision swims immediately and so he closes his eyes again and gives in to the intrusion.

“Danny was right,” one of them says, “you are beautiful.” And what the fuck is that supposed to mean, Tim wants to ask, but the fingers in his mouth are replaced with something better and he loses the thought. 

They set a rhythm that chases anything else out of Tim’s mind, one that runs counterpoint to the vibrations from the music below. It leaves him completely lost, but it’s a good feeling, not having to think of anything, to worry, just to be this - a bunch of nerves firing in pleasure to the beat of some distant music.

They take their time to take him apart and by the time they finish Tim has come more than once. 

Afterwards, they clean him up and help him back into his pants and jeans.

“That was nice. Thanks, guys.” The words come a bit sluggish, but Tim’s been raised on politeness, and they did give him a good time.

“We have some friends, if you’re interested in more,” one of them offers - Tim can’t tell which, their faces too similar. He guesses it’s the guy whose cock he’s just had down his throat - not the one that calls him ‘gorgeous’.

“Maybe another time?” he says and trepidation settles in his bones. He isn’t sure he wants it, isn’t sure he doesn’t want it. Likely he’s just too fucked out to really make a call on it.

They both give him a nod in unison.

“Let us know when you’re ready,” the other one says.

“Sure,” Tim says and clumsily gathers up the last of his clothes.

Outside the door Danny is waiting, still and eyes bright in the dim light. Tim doesn’t question it, like he starts to not question a lot of things these days.

“Did you have a good time?” Danny asks and Tim hums, still a bit out of it. It’s like he is floating in a sticky substance, artificially sweet like the drinks they bought at the carnival as children. The floor below him feels more like it’s made out of sawdust than old carpet. 

And then the intense feeling of being watched is back and it nearly makes him double over, if it weren’t for Danny slinging an arm around his shoulder. The feeling vanishes just as abruptly, as if Danny’s body is a shield. 

It doesn’t block out someone shouting Tim’s name in the far distance, though.

“Stop it,” Danny growls and Tim blinks at him, the angles of his face all wrong and distorted, but when he turns to Tim, his smile is just as warm as ever, just as comforting.

“Let’s get you home, yeah?”

Tim nods, exhaustion crashing through him and making his head drop onto Danny’s shoulder. “Sounds good.”

\---

That night Tim has nightmares. Terrible distorted things in which nothing makes sense and Danny is gone and doesn’t ever come back except as a monster.

He wakes up to Danny shaking him awake, repeating his name like a broken doll.

“I’m fine!” He pushes at Danny’s hands and finds his own shaking. “I’m fine,” he repeats. “I’m up.”

“Just a nightmare,” Danny says calmly, catching Tim’s hands in his own, pressing them to his chest.

“Could’ve guessed that one myself,” Tim snipes back, but he relaxes a bit as Danny runs soothing circles over the back of his hands. When Tim leans back against the pillow, Danny reaches for the red glass of water on the bedside table. He doesn’t hand it to Tim but presses it to his lips instead and Tim tiredly tries to glare at him. He drinks it anyway. 

“Go back to sleep, I’ll watch over you.”

“I’m not a child.”

Danny tilts his head. He reaches out and gently brushes aside a strand of hair resting on Tim’s forehead. “No, but you had a very bad head injury.”

“No kidding,” Tim says, but his mind already fogs over again, sleep creeping in at the edges.

Danny still sits next to him on the bed when Tim wakes up in the morning.

\---

They are back at the club the next evening, Tim feeling more rested than he has in days. The music doesn’t cause him much of a headache this time, but he still prefers to wait next to the bar, watching the crowd.

As if on cue the guy is back again, this time with two friends in tow. 

It doesn’t take much to convince Tim.

The sex is good, extremely good and he’s made to come so many times he can’t count. Still it feels like it isn’t enough, like an itch beneath his skin has been soothed but not scratched - like it’s still too tight around his flesh. 

He feels overheated, just this short of bursting alight.

It’s not enough, but it becomes too much regardless.

His head is swimming and the headache returns with full force. The lights are too bright and when he looks up the bodies of his companions seem to distort and stretch and droop.

He weakly bats at one of them and turns his head away from the cock smearing fluids over his cheek. “Stop,” he rasps out. “Stop.” Two of them hesitate, scooting back a bit, but the guy fucking him with the measured rhythm of a fucking machine doesn’t.

Tim pushes at him with as much energy as he can muster, which still isn’t more than a light shove. “I said stop!”

The guy looks at him in confusion. “Don’t you enjoy yourself?”

Tim lets out a bitter laugh. “Not right now.”

Which is all it takes for the guy to retreat as well. Tim gathers up his clothes quickly and can’t quite suppress how he is shaking. 

Outside the door Danny is waiting again, his head cocked to one side. “Tim?”

“Just let’s go, okay?” he says and rushes past Danny.

It only takes Danny a few strides to catch up with him. “Okay,” he repeats and his arm bumps against Tim’s. 

The night air is stickily warm but Tim shivers anyway. He just wishes the cab Danny ordered would hurry up. He feels Danny watching him and knows the question is coming even before Danny asks it.

“Are you-”

“Yeah, fine,” he cuts him off. The light emitting from the streetlights seems to bend around the corners of the houses and his headache makes the colours go soft.

Danny places his wine red jacket over Tim’s shoulder, like they’re caught in some bizarre rom-com. Tim doesn’t know where Danny got this one, cause he’s sure Danny only brought the exploration equipment and his old leather jacket with him to London.

“Thanks, but-”

“You’re fine,” Danny echoes. 

Tim can feel Danny questioning him again, if not with words than with the way he looks him over, so he tries to distract.

“I like your new aftershave.” He used to be better at those kind of things. It does the job, though, as Danny seems to light up and smiles at him.

“Really?”

“Yeah, very minty.”

“You always liked mint,” Danny says and tilts his head as if he’s just figured something out. Tim did, the pot with mint in their garden, the one that their mother wanted them to keep out of, Tim always stole a few leaves, chewing on them or rubbing them between his fingers. Everytime their Mum needed some for cooking he was the first to dash outside, even when he was older, even when he was just visiting.

\---

Later that night Danny climbs into the bed with him without so much as asking. “I don’t want you to have more nightmares,” he says as way of explanation. “It seems to help when I’m around.”

Tim wants to argue back and tell Danny to fuck off - that he isn’t some scared little child and besides he’s the older of the two of them. But Danny has already thrown an arm over Tim’s chest and pulled him close, nose pressed to the back of Tim’s neck. “Shut up, Tim,” he mutters softly and his lips ghost over the skin on Tim’s shoulder. 

He smells like cloves and mint and Tim has to repress a shudder that he can’t pinpoint the origin off, except he is far too aware of every place Danny is pressed against him and how it sets his own nerves alight in a way he doesn’t want to analyze too closely.

Or how it feels like Danny isn’t breathing at all. 

\----

Danny is always there these days, always too close, always touching him, always watching. Just like now, both of them pressed into one of the couches next to the dance floor. There is enough room to keep his distance, but Danny has his arm slung over Tim’s shoulder, face close to his ear so he can talk better to Tim.

“You’re sure?” he asks. “They like you a lot.”

“Yeah, noticed that I’m the hot girl in school. I’m just not in the mood.”

He looks over at the dance floor, purposefully ignoring Danny. The multi-coloured flashing lights, the mass of writhing bodies and the pounding of the music give him a headache again. 

“We can always go home,” Danny says, his lips brushing over the shell of Tim’s ear. A small contact but it feels like it chases the beginning headache away.

Tim throws him a quick smile. “I’m good. Besides, you wanted to have some fun to. Go dance or something.”

“Not without you.”

Danny always lacked a decent sense of humour but he never used to sound this serious either. 

“Danny, really it’s fine.”

“Yes, you keep telling me.”

Tim huffs out a breath of annoyance and bumps his head against Danny’s. “Fine, you want to know?”

“Always.”

So Tim tells him. It wasn’t much he assures Danny, just an overreaction, a gap in communication, but Danny’s fingers curl up into a fist and he gets very still. 

“Danny…”

He relaxes again, uncurls his fist and takes Tim’s hand into his instead. “I won’t let that happen again,” Danny says and Tim snorts.

“What, you’re going to tell that guy off? Or you’re going to watch over me?” he jokes, but wishes he could swallow the last words once the implication of them sinks in.

“I could,” Danny offers.

“Look, that’s-.”

“Why not? I want you to enjoy yourself here and if I can do anything to make you feel safer, I will.” The fingers of Danny’s other hand run soothingly through the hair at the back of his head.

Tim isn’t sure why he agrees in the end. It’s a terrible idea and awkward at the very best. But he does and this time it’s Danny that leads him upstairs. The others are already waiting, though Tim thinks that that guy from the night before isn’t there.

\---

It should be weirder having Danny in the same room, and at first Tim is very aware that his brother is there. As soon as they start though Danny’s presence drops to the background.

Between the lips and hands on his skin Tim loses track of time and nearly himself. It’s only now and then, when they wring another orgasm out of him, that he catches glimpses of Danny. As if he’s hovering on the edges, getting into focus only then. It’s unsettling but Tim doesn’t get the time to focus for too long on him, to dissect the feelings running through him. 

Soon enough he’s at the same point as before, too close and not close enough. His skin feels too tight and too hot, like he’s running on a high fever, like it’s going to crack at any moment. Every touch is too much, setting his nerves alight, but never enough to tip him over the brink one more time.

“Can’t-” he gasps out. His eyes find Danny and he’s there in a second. One blessed cool hand on Tim’s shoulder and the other under his jaw. His face is right above Tim’s and he gets a whiff of that minty aftershave again that fogs up his mind.

“Yes, you can,” Danny says and then his lips are pressed to Tim’s.

That’s it, that’s the tipping point. 

Tim comes so hard he nearly passes out.

\---

They don’t talk on their way back to Tim’s flat. Tim adamantly refuses to everytime Danny makes an attempt. 

He can’t deal with this. Any of it.

The headache is back too, in full force.

He nearly slams the freshly painted red door shut before Danny slips through it and catches him by the shoulder.

“Tim.”

“Look, let’s just pretend that that never happened.” His headache spikes and Tim swears he can taste colours.

“No,” Danny says and crowds him back against the wall. “Do you even know how much I want you? Do you know how much it took me not to join the others? How long I  _ waited _ ?” His eyes are still like sunken pebbles as he looks at Tim, but there is something burning in them that keeps Tim trapped. It’s a look he’s known Danny getting from countless of hobbies and random interests catching his attention, except even at the height of his obsessions he’s never looked as intent.

The words settle in his stomach, hot and searing and unpleasant in how much they affect him, how easy it would be for them to settle lower.

“Danny, this is crazy.” There isn’t anywhere he can run, with his back to the wall and both of Danny’s arms bracketing him in. The only way would be forward, pushing Danny away, but his hands lay useless on Danny’s shoulder, fingers grasping weakly at the burgundy shirt he’s wearing.

Danny tilts his head. “Good,” he says flatly. He leans in ever so slowly, waiting for something. For Tim to bolt or tell him off again or for Tim to act in any way. But Tim is rooted to the spot, can’t seem to get his limbs to move or his voice to work.

Frozen in place, like- like that time- like-  _ No _

Danny winds a hand into Tim’s hair and the thought scatters just like his headache. His eyes are bright in the dim light and Tim can’t look away until his vision swims. 

The brush of Danny’s lips against his sends a jolt through his body, the memory from their kiss earlier that night slamming into him with full force. A pitiful whimper escapes his mouth and Danny takes it as invitation. 

His tongue tastes like peppermint and the texture of it feels wrong when Tim brushes his own instinctively against it. He can feel Danny smile against his lips and his fingers tighten in his hair, tilting his head back. Danny’s always been the taller of the two of them since he hit puberty, but Tim’s never felt small next to him, never been so aware of the height difference than he is now, with his neck straining and his back arched just so that Danny has an easier time of kissing him. 

He never could say no to Danny and this isn’t any different.

Danny’s other hand slides down, along the lines of Tim’s lower back and his ass, grasping his thigh. He lifts it until Tim is nearly off balance and the only way to fall back is to let Danny lift him up, to wind both of his legs around Danny’s hips. Even with one hand in Tim’s hair, Danny picks him up like he weighs nothing, doesn’t even break the kiss once. He jerks forward when Danny tucks at his hair again, his own guilty erection rubbing against the hard bulge in Danny’s jeans.

“Yes,” he hisses against Tim’s mouth and the next thing he knows is that he is lying naked in his own the bed and can’t recall how he got there, but it matters little the moment Danny climbs on to the mattress and pushes his legs apart to make room for himself.

He watches Tim with those still eyes of him again, the way he twitches and shifts, a smile skittering over his face - triumphant and too wide. Tim closes his own eyes, headache spiking up again, but just as before it vanishes the second Danny’s lips are on his. 

Danny reaches between them, his fingers already coated in something and slides them down between Tim’s ass cheeks, meeting nearly no resistance as he thrusts them into him.

Tim’s been fucked so many times that night and he didn’t thought he could go for another round, he’s still sore and every little thing seems like too much, even if it weren’t Danny. Danny, whose every touch is possessive, who seems intend of erasing every trace the others left that night on Tim with his lips and his hands, covering up their clove smell with his own, a hint of mint mixed into it - this odd aftershave he’s been using lately and that Tim feels the absence of when Danny isn’t around.

He didn’t think he could go for more but then Danny pushes inside him, so easily, as if every other cock just prepared Tim for this. Tim’s head drops down on the pillow and he pushes back, a moan being wrung out of him and he thinks  _ oh, that’s what’s been missing.  _

Danny cards a hand through his hair and pulls ever so slightly on it, just enough to make Tim’s back arch a bit more. “You’re so gorgeous,” he mutters reverently, “I imagined you so many times like this. All mine, all eager, just for me alone.” His thrusts are measured and nearly punishing and they hardly leave Tim any time to form a response between his moans aside from a broken fuck.

Danny swallows it and his lips stay on Tim’s until they’ve both come, until Tim has to turn his head away to get more air into his lungs, his muscles still shivering uncontrollably from the orgasm. Danny presses his lips against the spot below his ear.

“Dance with me,” he says like a request. “Tomorrow evening, dance with me.”

Tim closes his eyes, his breath still coming too fast, his body still shaking. If he’d allow himself a second to think he’d be horrified by what he just did. So he doesn’t. The scent of mint and clove lingers in his nose and fogs his mind. He can feel Danny’s eyes on him. Waiting, expecting - glittering like glass marbles in the dark.

“Okay,” he says shakily. “Yes.”

\---

There is a woman standing in the middle of the dance floor. She smiles too widely and too cheerfully when she sees Tim. His stomach turns and he nearly suppresses the urge to throw up.

She’s wearing a red ringmaster’s outfit, matched with a top hat and a black leather whip on her waist. There is a necklace around her neck, but Tim’s eyes slip from it when he tries to focus on it, making his headache pound even worse.

Her smile widens and her teeth are too white. “Now come, you don’t want to leave your brother waiting, do you, Tim? He’s been waiting just for you.”

Tim’s mouth is dry and anger and fear wash through him, almost lifting the cloud his head seems to have been stuck in for weeks now. 

Instead he takes a step forward. And then another. Danny is waiting, his hand outstretched, palm facing upwards, inviting him in for a dance. Tim reaches out and the fingertips of his right hand brush against Danny’s. 

He doesn’t get to take his hand. Someone barrels between them, pushing through. There is a crash when the person collides with the woman and something clatters to the ground.

It lands in front of Tim’s feet. 

He can’t focus on it but he is sure that that’s not a necklace. When he leans down to pick it up, time moves like syrup. 

“Tim, don’t,” Danny warns him, but it’s already in his hand.

“Tim!” the other person yells and Tim knows the voice, recognizes it even through the searing pain that threatens to split open his skull from one second to the next. When he tries to look directly at them, the whole world goes wonky around the edges. He doesn’t look away.

“What do you  _ see _ ?”

“My asshole boss,” he says on reflex.

Knowledge slams into his mind. The world becomes crystal sharp, painfully so. Time settles into its normal cadence again, away from whatever he’s been stuck in for what seems like weeks but was merely hours at best. Tim would crumple to the floor if it weren’t for Danny’s hands on his arm. No, not Danny - the thing wearing his skin. The thing that seeps through the badly made stitches under what was once Danny. 

Panic and disgust tighten up his throat and he can’t even speak. Doesn’t need to, by the way Jon is looking at him, all grief and embarrassment and  _ pity _ . He knows. He saw. Everyone in this godforsaken room did. There is no club, no upstairs room, the only small mercy is that his flat was a small room besides the stage they’re on.

He’d been the one Danny tried to shield him from. 

“Now, now, that wasn’t very nice,” the woman - Nikola Orsinov - chides Jon. She turns to Tim and holds out her hand.  “How about you give that back to me and we forget all of this.” Tim feels his memories seeping away again, that cotton candy feeling grasping at the edges of his mind again, with promises of nice things and Danny unharmed and alive and endlessly adoring of him.

Jon’s voice cuts through it like a hot knife through butter. “Tim! What are you holding?”

Tim blinks, shakes his head, looks down at his left hand.

The detonator.

“Oh that’s quite enough!”

Jon screams and Tim looks up just in time to see him vanish into the chaos behind the stage they’ve all been on the whole time. Nikola looks furious even as she’s still smiling. 

“Now give that back, will you? And then you can go back to that nice little illusion Danny wove just for you.”

That thing that isn’t Danny shifts closer, his hands still grasping Tim’s right arm, gentle but firm. “Do as she says, please,” it says softly in Danny’s voice. Tim nearly does. Just because he never could say no to Danny.

He takes a shaky breath, gathers his own voice. “Jon? I don’t know if you can hear me, I don’t forgive you, but thank you for giving me a choice,” Tim says into the chaos and the twisted colours of the dance. A choice he doesn’t know what to do with it. 

“Tim,” that thing whispers urgently into his ear the same time as Jon says it weakly from beyond his vision. 

Tim closes his eyes and turns towards it, doesn’t want to see, and leans in to kiss it and drinks in the smell of cloves and mint, lets it fog his mind. His hand trembles around the detonator. He could have this, he could have Danny and he could have this twisted illusion and it’d be so easy.

He loves Danny, always has, always will, in multitudes of ways and this monstrosity that wears his brother’s skin seems to be no exception.

He hates Jon, hasn’t always, isn’t sure if he always would have, but he hates what he stands for and what he serves and what he could become.

It should be an easy decision to make.

It isn’t.

Tim makes it anyway.


End file.
